{"date":"2026-01-13","type":"Study Session","videoId":"PdjSjhxgrP8","audioDuration":7377,"speakers":{"A":{"name":"David Weekly","role":"Board President"},"B":{"name":"Mike Wells","role":"Trustee"},"C":{"name":"John Baker","role":"Superintendent (Dr. Baker)"},"D":{"name":"Evelyn Sanchez","role":"Executive Assistant to Superintendent / Board Secretary"},"E":{"name":"David Li","role":"Trustee"},"F":{"name":"Jennifer Ng Kwing King","role":"Clerk"},"G":{"name":"Cecilia I. Márquez","role":"Vice President"},"H":{"name":"Unidentified speaker","role":"Unknown"},"I":{"name":"Jennifer Ng Kwing King","role":"Clerk (secondary label used for motion/second moments)"},"J":{"name":"Unidentified speaker","role":"Unknown"},"K":{"name":"Jennifer Ng Kwing King","role":"Clerk (board discussion voice)"},"L":{"name":"Itzel (interpreter)","role":"Spanish interpreter / community member"},"M":{"name":"Unidentified speaker","role":"Unknown"},"N":{"name":"Steven Jevic (Steve Yeik)","role":"Public speaker / Orion PTO representative"},"O":{"name":"Patricia Renderos","role":"Public speaker / Hoover parent"},"P":{"name":"Lisa Onofre","role":"Public speaker / Clifford parent"},"Q":{"name":"Unidentified speaker","role":"Unknown"},"R":{"name":"Tina Yim","role":"Public speaker / Orion parent"},"S":{"name":"Christian Vasquez","role":"Public speaker / Clifford parent"},"T":{"name":"Unidentified speaker","role":"Unknown"},"U":{"name":"Rita Melton","role":"Public speaker / Adelante Selby teacher"}},"utterances":[{"start":5227,"end":26377,"speaker":"A","text":"Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming to tonight's special meeting and study session. So we are going to do a roll call and then approval of the agenda. Roll call, welcome."},{"start":26589,"end":26947,"speaker":"B","text":"Okay, great."},{"start":27257,"end":29898,"speaker":"A","text":"So can we kick off a roll call, please, for all those in attendance? Trustee King."},{"start":33406,"end":34111,"speaker":"C","text":"Trustee Wells?"},{"start":34111,"end":34335,"speaker":"B","text":"Here."},{"start":34335,"end":35393,"speaker":"D","text":"Trustee Li?"},{"start":35393,"end":35985,"speaker":"E","text":"Here."},{"start":35985,"end":37347,"speaker":"F","text":"Trustee King? Here."},{"start":37347,"end":38629,"speaker":"C","text":"Vice President Márquez?"},{"start":38629,"end":39014,"speaker":"G","text":"Here."},{"start":39014,"end":40039,"speaker":"C","text":"President Weekly?"},{"start":40039,"end":86704,"speaker":"A","text":"Present. All right, and with that, we will now do my welcome. So thank you for coming. I can see that there's quite a few people in the audience and some people online as well. So very glad to have you all here tonight, um, and we are going to have Public comment. Yep. And yep. And public comments may be made live via Zoom. Virtual speaker cards can be submitted during the open session using the links that you can see online. Remote participants can also use the raise hand function in Zoom to indicate your desire to speak. If you would like to speak in person, there are speaker cards available at the entrance, and they can be submitted to the secretary."},{"start":86704,"end":86897,"speaker":"G","text":"Thank you."},{"start":87188,"end":107406,"speaker":"A","text":"Here's Evelyn right here. Public comments will be limited to 3 minutes per person per topic. There's one topic on the agenda tonight, unless otherwise noted. Great. I think we're— we can skip the Pledge of Allegiance for tonight. We'll do that tomorrow. And so do we have any changes to the agenda?"},{"start":109785,"end":110128,"speaker":"H","text":"All right."},{"start":111580,"end":112396,"speaker":"A","text":"Would someone like to move?"},{"start":112396,"end":114044,"speaker":"B","text":"I'll move that we approve the agenda."},{"start":114109,"end":114599,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you."},{"start":115657,"end":115770,"speaker":"I","text":"Second."},{"start":115770,"end":115963,"speaker":"F","text":"Second."},{"start":115963,"end":117671,"speaker":"A","text":"Wonderful. All those in favor?"},{"start":118235,"end":118283,"speaker":"J","text":"Aye."},{"start":118750,"end":120151,"speaker":"A","text":"All right, the agenda passes."},{"start":120409,"end":120538,"speaker":"K","text":"Great."},{"start":121295,"end":125178,"speaker":"A","text":"Um, so now we would like to open things up for public comment."},{"start":125178,"end":132626,"speaker":"C","text":"You want to do public comment right now? Do you want to do the presentation first and then public comment?"},{"start":132626,"end":134176,"speaker":"A","text":"Presentation and then public comment?"},{"start":135654,"end":135817,"speaker":"F","text":"Yeah."},{"start":135965,"end":138172,"speaker":"A","text":"Okay, great. Let's do the presentation and then public comment."},{"start":144128,"end":371536,"speaker":"C","text":"All right, good evening everyone and welcome to tonight's study session. I want to welcome not only board members but those in the audience, and also wanted a big shout out to, um, our participants who were on the Strategic Resource Alignment Committee. We had President Weekly on that committee, we also had Trustee Wells, and then we had, uh, 3 of our principals on the, on the committee. We had Lupe Guzman, who is with us tonight. We have Tina who is probably online this evening, and also Winnie Chin as our administrators. Plus, we had, uh, one or two parents from each of our school sites for the meetings in English. And for the meetings in Spanish, they were held at Taft, Garfield, and Hoover after our English meetings, where we had many parents from each of those school sites attend the meetings. So welcome to everyone, and thank you so much for participating, uh, not only on the committee but Also for the parent engagement meetings that I had at Taft, Garfield, and Hoover. All right, if we could go to the next slide, please. So tonight's agenda: we're going to give a board update on the strategic resource alignment process, what that looked like, where we are with it at this point in time. We want to share a preliminary budget reduction— the preliminary budget reduction options. These, uh, reduction options were definitely shared with the larger group, and then they were also shared with our site administrators. And our site administrators took it one more step and met with their— not only their staff but also their site councils. And some met with their PTAs and PTOs too. And then of course I, um, shared the preliminary budget reductions with the Taft, the Garfield, and the Hoover parent participants that were at the meetings also. So, and then the other portion of this meeting tonight is that we want to receive board feedback and direction before the final recommendation comes before the board on February 4th. So this is a study session, and so a study session is quite a bit different than our normal board meetings. So during a study session, we don't really need to go hand in hand with the Brown Act. If Participation from our audience, participation from members who aren't— are online. If there are particular questions that you may want to ask to get a better understanding of the comment, to get a better understanding of the question, it's okay to entertain a dialogue. Whereas, you know, in a regular board meeting, we don't do that. If you feel that further information Any board member from a comment is needed, then I would ask that you kindly request that President Weekly direct me on what it is that you're hoping to garner from more information, and then I will get that back to you. All right, uh, the next slide, please. So why is this work necessary? You know, we came out of the pandemic a few years back, and we We had a lot of one-time dollars, and those one-time dollars we definitely used in a manner that was going to meet the needs of our students here in the Redwood City School District. Last year around this time, we were talking about those one-time dollars that no longer exist. And so how are we going to reduce our budget to accommodate still some of the needs that we have and that those dollars paid for?"},{"start":371536,"end":371697,"speaker":"F","text":"Thank you."},{"start":372082,"end":485839,"speaker":"C","text":"to continue on, as we felt, not only by myself at the district office, cabinet, and board members, that were really important, one of the items being counselors. And so that, that item was moved forward to continue to maintain, and we have maintained at most of our school sites. The other piece that is really necessary is to look at the enrollment as it continues to be declining. Uh, we had a lot of data that was shared with our committee members in regard to the declining enrollment and what that's going to bring forth in the next few years. And so we want to make sure that we adjust our services accordingly that are at each school site depending on the enrollment that has not only the district but at each school site regarding the number of students, the number of staff members— staff members being our teachers and staff members also being our classified staff. Redwood City is now community funded, but the revenue is not increasing fast enough to keep up with the pace of our operational costs. And our operational costs meet the needs of our student services. They also garner additional support for our employees in the realm of compensation, and which is something we have not entered to yet. This year in negotiations, which my colleague to my left, Wendy Kelly, and also Rick Edson will be starting those negotiations towards the end of February, correct? So we still have that to look forward to. And then the budget reductions have become kind of an annual necessity, and that's something that we, as myself as a superintendent, you as board members, need to start."},{"start":485839,"end":485952,"speaker":"K","text":"Uh-huh."},{"start":486532,"end":512854,"speaker":"C","text":"We need to start realizing how are we going to kind of shift and move to— we're not going in this direction every year. Next slide, please. So the structural challenge for us, as I pointed out earlier, the declining enrollment. So more than 1,000 fewer students are projected by the year 2033."},{"start":513696,"end":514145,"speaker":"A","text":"34."},{"start":514145,"end":567471,"speaker":"C","text":"So we need to adjust our services that we're providing to the number of students as we come— become a smaller organization. If you look at what we're providing right now, and I'm talking in relation to the different program needs, our staffing needs, we have not since the pandemic started reducing, um, the number of staff members. And I'm speaking In the line of teachers in regard to the number of students in each classroom. You will see in some of our schools, in some of the data that we shared with the committee, we have some very small classrooms which don't really warrant a teacher in that classroom, but you could take those students and make a combination classroom, and we have not done that. So we're looking at that fact at this point in time."},{"start":567471,"end":567759,"speaker":"E","text":"Thank you."},{"start":568516,"end":688316,"speaker":"C","text":"The district is still operating programs and services designed for larger student populations. So we're really looking at that data of the number of students and the number of students we serve according— in the classroom according to contract. And that needs to start mirroring the contract quite soon. It requires additional long-term range planning and not short-term fixes because we want to maintain our financial stability. From this point, from, you know, after the decision is made moving forward. Yes, there's talk about other avenues which the board will be thinking about and making decisions in the near future. And that avenue, I'm talking about parcel tax, whether that comes to fruition or not and how that can really support us. Next slide, please. So what is strategic resource alignment? Well, it's aligning the staff, the services, and the operations with a smaller organization. We have become a smaller organization. Years ago, we were a school district of 10,000, and now we are a school district of 6,400-some-odd, correct? So we have to adjust ourselves according to that number. Uh, we want to achieve long-term financial sustainability so that we're not going through This process every year. As we maintain that sustainability, this act will no longer be necessary. It will just be an act depending on attrition, an act depending on whether there is growth, but nothing compared to what we've been doing every year now for, for my last 10 years, with the exception of COVID With the exception of COVID we have gone in this direction."},{"start":688316,"end":688621,"speaker":"E","text":"Thank you."},{"start":690223,"end":713337,"speaker":"C","text":"And then not simply about cost cutting, but about responsible planning. We're not here just because of the dollar amount, but as we're reducing, we want to make sure that we're responsible and we are heading in a direction that we're meeting the needs of our students at each of our schools with the programs and the staffing that is needed to accomplish where we want to be."},{"start":713337,"end":715488,"speaker":"E","text":"Next slide."},{"start":715488,"end":800663,"speaker":"C","text":"So the process to date. So you will see on this slide here that we started, um, this process with the Large Strategic Alignment Committee, and I previously voiced members of that committee, not only board members that sat on the committee and site administrators, but also we had parents from each school site on the large Committee here that was held in English, and we had parents on the Bay Side that attended each committee meeting in large forms. Also, we wanted our parents and our staff to really understand where we were, so there was a community survey that was given to our community. From there, we started our orientation on September 16th. And the orientation dealt with financing, staffing, and other contexts that we needed so that people could really understand it. Then on October 14th, we looked at values, priorities, data, and then the community input from the survey. And then on November 18th, there were the trade-offs and a preliminary scenario, which I gave the committee, which members of the board did see that spreadsheet."},{"start":800663,"end":800955,"speaker":"L","text":"Okay."},{"start":803134,"end":855817,"speaker":"C","text":"That night, and each of the members that were at the committee meeting got a copy of that spreadsheet. And then I in turn went and did the same thing in— for our Spanish community, and also gave that copy of spreadsheet to principals to review with myself and colleagues at a principals meeting. Then they took it back to their staff, they took it back to their site councils, and some also went further with PTAs and PTOs. Additional engagement was also at our ELAC and our DELAC meetings, which was spearheaded by Catherine Rivera, and I want to thank her. She's here in the audience tonight. That helped me move in that direction, along with Michelle Ramon and Jorge Quintana, who are also in, in the audience this evening. Next slide, please."},{"start":860231,"end":860391,"speaker":"F","text":"Yes."},{"start":860391,"end":1033938,"speaker":"C","text":"So when we're talking the scenario development, um, the preliminary reduction options shared in November at the committee was a request from the committee. The committee felt they wanted to hear from, uh, the district, and the district members that were on the committee were myself, Rick, and Jorge, in regard to what we felt we could do with reductions. And also keeping in the front forward of one's mind to keep it as far away from the classroom as possible. So I came up with a scenario, it was developed, and when you— when we go through this spreadsheet, you're going to view that the district office, uh, definitely we're restructuring the purpose and what's proposed for the district office. While we're looking at reducing programs and services, there are some programs And services that we are required to provide. And those programs that are required for us to provide are definitely our programs that are mandated by the LCAP. There are some items in there that are mandated. The federal programs that some of our school sites have with their Title I dollars or Title II and so forth, and our multilingual learners dollars, those are mandated and must be followed. If not, Every 3 years we get an audit from the feds, and I think, Catherine, that's coming up next year. It'll be coming up next year where they look at our expenses and how we're spending money with a fine-tooth comb and look at our board policies and even change those, even though Gamut said one thing. They're the feds. If you want to keep your dollars. You're going to put this language in, even though we argued with them. We, we lost, and I was not going to lose the money. So those are items that we have to adhere to. And then specific charges not yet discussed due to required confidential employee conversations, because we are coming to you on February 4th not only with the reductions for you to approve if everything goes well tonight, and then everything goes well at our next large committee meeting with The group, but also you will see the reductions of those positions as laid out by the Human Resource Office. And Wendy will bring that forward. You'll see that February 4th, but we are going to have discussions in regard to what that'll look like. And then the next piece— turn this section over to you."},{"start":1033938,"end":1413309,"speaker":"E","text":"Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Uh, touching on what Dr. Baker started, uh, the preliminary options that were presented to the committee, uh, and now the board tonight, uh, are broken up in the spreadsheet that we'll share in a moment on the screen, uh, showing approximately $3.9 million in district office restructuring operational efficiencies with a reduction of 5.65 management FTEs. I want to be clear from the start that, that you can't divide simply 3.9 by 5.6 and see that we have people making $650,000, $700,000 a year around here. It's a combination of different restructuring and different cost savings that equal that amount but are not correlated one-to-one with the FTE reduction. That'll be true in some other areas as well. Uh, the school-based reductions that will show on the spreadsheet of approximately $2. $5 million that we've captured at this point. And as Dr. Baker mentioned, mostly it's right-sizing the district, right, in terms of the number of students we have, the number of classrooms we have, the amount of services that we need to provide to our students. This isn't to take away needed services to any of our students, but it's providing adequate services for the students that we do have. Knowing that, uh, not necessarily today, but over the course of several years, we're going to continue to see declining enrollment, as we've started to see maybe the start of that with some of the enrollment that we've been tracking since, I believe, late October, Jorge, is when enrollment started. November, uh, beginning of November, uh, through now. So we're starting to see that with the new students that are coming into the district or lack of new students coming into the district in some cases. So when we looked at this, as Dr. Baker mentioned, we looked at what we could do from the standpoint of providing the necessary programs and services and keeping cuts as far away from our current classrooms as possible. And we brought this back to the committee in November, I believe, for them to give us feedback on that, and we're now presenting it to the board. Uh, in whole tonight. So Dr. Baker will also go through some of this, but I'll give a general overview. I have the spreadsheet blown up, it's quite large, but we're really focused tonight on the '25-'26 proposed expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements and the '26-'27 proposed expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements. As I know each of you, as we've talked about it and we presented on the first interim report, we were able to show that we needed approximately $5.25 million in needed fiscal stabilization measures, which that number had decreased from $7.5 million at the June budget through a combination of the natural process of closing of the books and then going through the first portion of the '25-'26 school year, uh, and looking for any savings or ways that we could reduce the needed number for reductions in the, uh, '26-'27 school year, as well as needed reductions in the '27-'28 school year. So with that, um, Uh, Dr. Baker and the team, uh, went through this spreadsheet broken up into several different areas in our district. We're not at this point looking for revenue enhancements, although if we happen to find any, we'll certainly add those at any time. Uh, and we would be looking at unrestricted revenue enhancements rather than just another grant coming in, that type of thing, although that helps. Uh, but it's broken down into certificate administration, classified administration, And within each of those 2 bands, it's broken out by district office as well as site, and then certificated class and classified personnel, and then at the bottom, other. And we'll talk about the other box when we get to there. So up on in the B section, B1 through 3 shows management at the DO site, and then a singular line item for admin IEP sub-coverage. Over, uh, in the column labeled 26-27 proposed expenditure reductions, uh, you'll see a number in there. Once again, that does not correlate, uh, one-to-one for the number of FTEs. So it's not $422,000, uh, with a 1.2 FTE reduction. It's a 1.2 FTE reduction that takes up part of that $422,000. And then there's other savings that we have identified in that line item. The same is true for each of the following, looking at $1 million approximately for certificate administrative reductions between DO site— DO and the sites. Same with classified, the $352,600. That number is pretty close to the 2.75 FTE. Uh, for that particular one, uh, certificated personnel, uh, $2.6 million, uh, or $2.7 million approximately, with a reduction of 17 teachers. Uh, and that is all around lower enrollment. Uh, there are teaching positions that were not filled this year that we thought we may be using that aren't. So not all of these positions have people in them at this point. But we are looking in totality, as Dr. Baker mentioned, across grade spans with class sizes to contractual limits. Classified personnel isn't one FTE reduction. That is the full cost of that person at the district office level. And then going into the other Section F, F1 is kind of a funny one when we look at it. Zoom renewal of $10,000."},{"start":1413309,"end":1413638,"speaker":"M","text":"Okay."},{"start":1414276,"end":1579881,"speaker":"E","text":"Uh, and the reason why I've left this here and Dr. Baker's left this here, it's just, um, really a marker. We're looking at those types of savings across, uh, different areas. So if we find 10 of those, that's $100,000. Um, or if we find larger ones or smaller ones, it starts adding up to help offset, uh, future reductions for, uh, services that were no longer needed. And so everyone understands with the Zoom licenses, we're not getting rid of all of them, but we have A couple dozen that are not being regularly used that we're paying for on an annual basis. So we're simply reducing the amount of licenses that we have. We'll still be using Zoom for board meetings and other meetings, right? So the individual licenses is what we're looking at. F2 SPED, that's a comprehensive, comprehensive, if you will, reduction. Dr. Baker will talk a little bit more about in a couple of minutes. Employee work visa, we're not using the visa program as much as we once were. Through Wendy's department in HR. So we see a savings, an ongoing savings there. And then the bottom one, vacant positions on this list, that is not the elimination of positions. That is simply positions that have been vacant at some point during the first half of the school year where we're able to recover that savings for monies that were encumbered but not spent. That does not mean that we will not hire these positions if applicants come through the door. But at this point in time, we're estimating about $300,000 for the current year of savings from those unfilled positions. So on the bottom of this sheet, you can see for the current year it's $310,000 approximately, and then for '26-'27 we've identified $6. Almost $6.3 million of savings, which is in excess of the required— or what we noted as required for reduction of $5.25 million at first interim. Uh, carrying all those forward, every reduction in that column is an ongoing reduction. So those monies go forward into the following year, uh, as savings against the $3.5 million that we had to reduce there. So, uh, not that it gives us extra money per se, but it does give us, uh, dollars that we've talked about, uh, with fiscal stability moving forward. Dr. Baker mentioned we will be opening negotiations, um, at the latter part of February and into March, uh, so that money will certainly help us, uh, in that realm as well. And with that, I'll turn over to Dr. Baker to go through a little more detail with the spreadsheet."},{"start":1580538,"end":1698314,"speaker":"C","text":"So as spreadsheet does not mention positions, it does not mention, of course, names either. And one of the rationales for doing that is we have by Ed Code the March 15th date, correct, Wendy, of where we need to inform our staff members if they will be losing their position at this point in time, or also if there's the ability for you to transfer somewhere else within the district. When we came up with this list, And working very closely with my colleagues Rick, Anna, and Wendy. Even though you see 17 teachers here, 17, yeah, the teachers that are there, there will be a position for the 17 because of the attrition and so forth that we have found out that is coming forth with people retiring, people leaving for a personal reason, whatever. So there will be jobs for teachers. As we move to the guest teachers, the guest teachers are teachers that we In place, and I believe this is year number 2, Wendy. We started— that's right. Thank you. Thank you for reminding me. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I want to forget that portion of time, but anyway, we did start during COVID and what it is, is it's a substitute teacher that's on a substitute salary, but the added, uh, price for them is they get benefits if they want to do it. So, and most of the time when you're subbing, there are no benefits. I have never heard of sub getting benefits. So we created this program then, and it's been quite successful. So what we thought about was giving each school a half-time, and, and with half-time, it's $400K compared to the $800K it would be. Now, in talking to principals, and many— I will say hello all principals because they're on."},{"start":1698314,"end":1699276,"speaker":"K","text":"If they're—"},{"start":1699276,"end":1700943,"speaker":"C","text":"Lupe's here, but all the rest are online."},{"start":1700991,"end":1702450,"speaker":"N","text":"If you can They're all online."},{"start":1702450,"end":1793004,"speaker":"C","text":"Thank you so much. They— I asked them to be online and they're here. Thank you. Um, some had indicated, well, I could use my Measure U dollars if I wanted to have a full-time person, and the district pay half and I can pay the other half. But, you know, that's a process that they need to go through with their site councils and their, their staffs. So that, that's that piece in regard to certificated personnel. The classified personnel is a position that is in one of our departments here at the district office that we've decided that it's not needed at this point in time. And then let me come up to the management when we're talking at the DO. At the DO, there's a 0.2 position of one of our senior managers that's going to take a title change, and that brings some of the dollars to this amount here. Plus we have One of our directors has resigned— well, actually was on leave of absence and is not returning, as we found out this week. So that's a position. The others, as the other portions of this DO piece, is we have some retired principals that are working at one of our school sites because of a lack of an administrator that will no longer exist after The school year. And then you—"},{"start":1793100,"end":1793372,"speaker":"E","text":"we work—"},{"start":1793661,"end":1947926,"speaker":"C","text":"we walk down to the management piece at a site. Uh, there is at one of our sites an additional, uh, substitute that's there regularly. We're not going to have that next year. And then there is an additional, uh, administrator at one of our sites that will no longer be at one of our school sites anymore due to the fact that they already have To assistance, and then as we come to one of the items, which was admin IEP sub coverage, you all know about this because you brought it to my attention. This is something that I believe some of my colleagues that are at the site will be talking to you about tonight, so I'll just leave it at that. And it is dependent on the number of IEPs they have at their school site. And you know, it's an individualized education plan for our special needs students, and the time it takes to meet with parents, meet with staff members, come up with that plan. And then there, every year, there's an annual meeting. On top of that, if you have our specialized learning centers, it's more so because of the needs of those children and the triannuals plus the additional Therapists, my mental health therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists that also have to be at that meeting, and psychologists. So it does take up a lot of time. So that is on here. So that's that one. When we come to the, uh, certificated personnel, as Rick pointed out, there are 17 teachers. That is in regard to the enrollment numbers that we have at this point in time, and these enrollment numbers are taken into consideration as of Monday. And Horace Mann done a great job on that because we opened up enrollment for Schools of Choice, we opened up enrollment for TK, we opened up enrollment for kindergarten, um, and the enrollment is not where we anticipated. Plus, looking at our classrooms district-wide and the number of students you can have per grade level according to contract need to be realigned. So that's how we come up with that 17 number. Now, noting again, I just wanted— for our staff members, our teachers that are out there, if you're going to, you know, not have that grade level or not have that class, there will be a position somewhere in the district if you would like it."},{"start":1947926,"end":1949144,"speaker":"F","text":"Okay."},{"start":1949144,"end":2090745,"speaker":"C","text":"Um, and then I talked about the guest teacher funding. Uh, district office I talked about, and, and Rick talked about, uh, the Zoom renewal and possibly more dollars from that. When we're looking at special ed, we're looking at our students who are in the 8th grade right now that are at non-public school settings. They will be going on to the high school. They'll no longer be part of the Redwood City School District. They're going into the high school district. Plus, we have some others, not only those students that are in the 8th grade, but we have some other students that are returning back to us from NPS because they're ready to reenter the mainstream. So that's special ed. And we talked about the VESA piece. And Rick talked about the Vacant positions. So with that being said, let me just go go to the next slide, Rick. After right, so the next steps that we have are board feedback from all of you, a discussion, what input we're getting from our community members and our parents about. This sheet that is moving forward tonight for further discussion. We have a final committee meeting with the larger group that Mr. Weekly and Mr. Wells are part of next a week from tonight, a week from tonight to go through this list. And if you were to look at this list, and I know you didn't, it it has for the committee to agree or not agree, and the superintendent. Also on these little boxes, which we'll check off next week. There it is right there. And then final recommendations come before you in February, February 4th. And the whole goal of this was transparency, stability, sustainability, and that we can have something that moving forward we can live with and live within our means. And that's with the monies that we're receiving right now, not additional monies that may be coming through grants, maybe coming through a future parcel tax, whatever, but live with the dollars that we're receiving every year from our taxpayers."},{"start":2092920,"end":2093032,"speaker":"M","text":"Okay."},{"start":2094319,"end":2094464,"speaker":"E","text":"All right."},{"start":2094561,"end":2098888,"speaker":"C","text":"Did you want to open it up to comments, or did you want to open it up to—"},{"start":2098888,"end":2101784,"speaker":"F","text":"One question. Sure."},{"start":2103324,"end":2103646,"speaker":"O","text":"Thank you."},{"start":2103792,"end":2128891,"speaker":"I","text":"Thank you, everyone. Um, just for my own clarification, and I, I, at least I— this is what I've heard from some parents who had been reading the presentation, so I want to make sure we're all clear on this. This is very different than our last year's process where each school had to— school site and admin had to make some of their cuts. It sounds like, from what I'm understanding, it's going to be the guest teacher that's going to be partially cut at school site and potentially the IEP admin."},{"start":2128891,"end":2129005,"speaker":"L","text":"Yes."},{"start":2129417,"end":2131392,"speaker":"I","text":"Right, versus the process from last year."},{"start":2131392,"end":2153807,"speaker":"C","text":"Right, right, you are correct. And I, I know there are members from the committee on here if they want to speak to it, but they were very instrumental in moving that forward. I think after our second meeting, to— for me to come back and coming back with staying away, far away from classroom as you can."},{"start":2158919,"end":2179383,"speaker":"A","text":"Any other further comments before we move things to public comment? Nope, seeing none, let's move to public comment. And I got some late ones here, so we'll do first public comment from the room and then for online. All right. In no particular order, I'll shuffle these up."},{"start":2180414,"end":2183774,"speaker":"C","text":"They're numbered in order."},{"start":2183774,"end":2194223,"speaker":"A","text":"Yeah, in very particular order, starting with number 1 that was thoughtfully labeled. Apologies if I'm a little new on this. We'll have Steven Jevic."},{"start":2194288,"end":2203255,"speaker":"F","text":"Steven, if you could press the button on the right."},{"start":2203336,"end":2206234,"speaker":"A","text":"Yep, just make sure the— there you go. And you'll have 3 minutes."},{"start":2206395,"end":2208439,"speaker":"N","text":"Got Hi, my name is Steve Yeik."},{"start":2208664,"end":2209194,"speaker":"G","text":"Excuse me."},{"start":2209242,"end":2235085,"speaker":"N","text":"And I'm here speaking on behalf of the Orion PTO Mandarin Immersion Co-op presidents. Uh, we're back here, as well as a large group of parents who are here as well and online. Uh, first of all, I want to thank you all for all you've done and taking our feedback into consideration. As you're aware, Orion sustained $270,000 in cuts last year, the deepest of all school sites, and we have trimmed our operation and grown our parent contribution significantly in response."},{"start":2235085,"end":2235261,"speaker":"E","text":"Thank you."},{"start":2235984,"end":2265298,"speaker":"N","text":"In spite of these cuts, our schools showed improvements in nearly all categories across ELA, math, and English learner progress on the 2025 California School Dashboard. We need continued investment to maintain this trajectory, especially given Orion's enrollment continues to grow. As a multi— multifaceted school population with 2 unique programs within one school, our needs differ from traditional school sites. We rely on and fully utilize all our administrative intervention and support staff to their fullest extent."},{"start":2266501,"end":2267143,"speaker":"H","text":"Excuse me."},{"start":2268009,"end":2308385,"speaker":"N","text":"Many of these positions are supplemented through parent funding, and it is not feasible or sustainable to increase the pressure to give on our families any further. We understand the district is proposing cuts to our guest teachers across school sites. Our guest teacher is a highly utilized staff member and bilingual, therefore uniquely placed to serve both programs effectively. Cutting this position would have negative impacts across our Restructuring site funds to maintain even a proportion of the position would require rebalancing funds currently utilized for other critical support roles, likely impacting our students with the highest support needs. We ask the school board consider taking an equitable perspective when considering cutting the guest teacher position at Orion. Thank you again for your time."},{"start":2308385,"end":2317767,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you. Next up we have Patricia Renderos."},{"start":2332064,"end":2332306,"speaker":"M","text":"Okay."},{"start":2333580,"end":2334290,"speaker":"C","text":"Hi, everyone!"},{"start":2334467,"end":2338288,"speaker":"O","text":"I am Patricia Renderos, and I represent Hoover School."},{"start":2338836,"end":2338997,"speaker":"D","text":"Okay."},{"start":2339320,"end":2416958,"speaker":"O","text":"Hoy en español. Buenas noches a todos de la mesa directiva. Mi nombre es Patricia Renderos y soy la madre de 2 niños, uno en kinder y en TK, perdón, y el segundo en séptimo grado. Es un honor para mí estar frente a ustedes y poder expresarme. Quiero decirles que los TK, kinder y educación primaria son valiosos e importantes Para comenzar y fomentar una base sólida con mejores niños eficientes durante los años escolares restantes. Es muy importante los estudiantes de Hoover porque TK es la base del éxito para comenzar con los niños, ¿verdad? Pedimos un salón más De TK y que sean financiados a los maestros para que, para que ellos no tengan que irse. Porque TK está ayudando a mi hijo y a sus compañeritos a desarrollarse más en lo socioemocional y hacer amistades."},{"start":2416958,"end":2417318,"speaker":"M","text":"Thank you."},{"start":2419040,"end":2480919,"speaker":"O","text":"Pedimos reforzar a los maestros fijos de igual forma. El otro punto que quiero tocar es la retención de maestros y apoyo para su desarrollo. El problema que está ahorita es que cuando los maestros se van, los estudiantes, los estudiantes pierden estabilidad y relaciones importantes. Nuestra petición para ustedes, mesa directiva, es que si podemos proveer ciclos de coach con tiempo de liberación y apoyar a maestros nuevos. Ofrece desarrollo profesional con un modelaje y seguimiento, no solo talleres aislados. Pues porque mantener Maestros en Hoover ayuda directamente al éxito de nuestros hijos. Gracias por su tiempo y por escucharnos."},{"start":2480919,"end":2497372,"speaker":"A","text":"Muchas gracias. It's raising—"},{"start":2497372,"end":2499183,"speaker":"L","text":"Yeah, can you guys hear me?"},{"start":2499183,"end":2500193,"speaker":"C","text":"Yes, we can now."},{"start":2500193,"end":2584581,"speaker":"L","text":"Perfect. I will interpret the comment that the parent just shared. As she said, um, hi, good evening, uh, good, uh, oh, school board, and my name is Patricia Renderos, and I am the mom of 2 students, and one in TK and the other one in 7th grade. It's an honor for me to be speaking with you and to express Thank you. I want to share tonight that the kinder and TK students and the elementary students are very valuable, and, and the years are very valuable in the education, and to start and to have a foundation for success with better students during their school years that they have left. So it's very important. The students are very important in Hoover. Because TK is the foundation for success, and the issue that we have right now is that when the teachers leave, the students lose stability and relationships, important relationships. And our request for you, school board, is that if we can provide coaching cycles with free time as well and to support the new teachers."},{"start":2584581,"end":2584805,"speaker":"F","text":"Thank you."},{"start":2585929,"end":2608296,"speaker":"L","text":"And to offer them professional development with modeling and, and tracking, not only just workshops. And because to keep the teachers in Hoover, it helps the success for our children and students. Thank you for your time and for listening tonight."},{"start":2608296,"end":2608488,"speaker":"P","text":"Thank you."},{"start":2612385,"end":2616473,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much for the translation. Our next speaker is Agustín Espino."},{"start":2616473,"end":2631261,"speaker":"C","text":"Good evening."},{"start":2631874,"end":2810153,"speaker":"H","text":"My name is Agustín Espino, and I have my daughter Kennedy I'm here tonight to, to say that, uh, to ask to please, uh, keep focus on, uh, mental health. As, uh, I have attended a meeting and heard how important it is, mental health programs for our kids, for their success. Uh, also I want to ask to, uh, please let's keep also working as, uh, we, uh, you guys, you all talk A few months ago about TK programs for the to better our kids. This is a little tough, but we had I had to say how is the district need to make a cut, and I've been wandering around looking try to figure out find out just to. To see how many administrators, classified teachers, all these, so that money is gonna go allocated to where, to teachers who's— at the end of the day, our kids is gonna be affected with these cuts because it's needed. But, uh, as, um, Dr. Baker was saying earlier, a few years ago there were 10,000 Students now is 6 plus. Is the ratio of the administrators classified and teachers is being adjusted accordingly? Also, I hope that at the end of the day, when you all need to make this, this, these adjustments That you all think about it, our Latino community. And so make those decisions very equitable, so it can be even. So for all equally, I've been saying before, I will say it again. For me, as a member of the community. It's frustrating to see Hoover, how is scoring compared to Roy School, both school from the same district with very much the same amount of students. If we look at, this is so difficult to see how the difference. I all I know the education is important. I, I want all those kids to have a fair share. So I ask you all to please, once you guys had to make the decision, to please think about those kids. Thank you."},{"start":2810153,"end":2818385,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much, Augusto. Our next speaker is Lizbeth Estrada."},{"start":2828834,"end":3004340,"speaker":"M","text":"Muy buenas noches, estimados miembros de la mesa directiva. Mi nombre es Lisbeth Estrada, madre de 2 estudiantes en la escuela Hoover que cursan actualmente segundo y tercer grado. Me dirijo a ustedes para expresar mi profunda preocupación por los posibles recortes de los recursos de retención de maestros Y el sistema de intervención MTSS. La estabilidad de nuestros hijos depende de la permanencia de sus maestros. Un docente que se queda es un experto que conoce nuestra comunidad. Perderlos es romper el ciclo de aprendizaje. En el desarrollo de mis hijos ha sido fundamental contar con la labor de educadores y especialistas excepcionales como mi Amy Kimura, Miss Herrera, Miss Lenz, Miss Molina, el señor B, Miss Araceli y Miss Heather. El impacto que ellos han tenido demuestra que el apoyo estructural y profesional es la estrategia clave de retención que debe priorizarse. Respecto al sistema MTSS, recordar especialistas en lectura y matemáticas no es un ahorro. Es generar una deuda educativa. Sin apoyo Tier 2 y Tier 3, los estudiantes que hoy tienen dificultades requerirán servicios, servicios mucho más costosos en el futuro. He sido testigo de cómo estudiantes pasan de la frustración al éxito gracias a un especialista dedicado. Eliminar estos recursos Es quitarle el puente al futuro a nuestros niños. Mis peticiones concretas son: no realizar recortes en las plazas de especialistas en lectura y matemáticas, blindar el horario de estos, de estos especialistas para que se dediquen exclusivamente a la intervención estudiantil, asegurar el presupuesto para el desarrollo profesional Garantizando que el sistema sea sostenible. Nuestros estudiantes no pueden poner en pausa su aprendizaje mientras el presupuesto se mejora. El éxito de la Escuela Hoover depende desde un sistema de apoyo sólido para todos. Confío en que su compromiso con la excelencia educativa se reflejará en la protección De estos recursos vitales. Muchas gracias por su tiempo y por escuchar la voz de las familias de mi comunidad husky."},{"start":3004970,"end":3005648,"speaker":"G","text":"Gracias."},{"start":3005648,"end":3012619,"speaker":"A","text":"Gracias, Elizabeth. Do we have, uh, Itzel again? Yes, she's got her hands up."},{"start":3012619,"end":3187020,"speaker":"L","text":"Yes, so I will interpret the comment that Mom just shared. So Mom stated, uh, good evening, Good evening, school board, tonight. My name is Lizbeth Estrada. I am the mom of 2 students in Hoover School that are going, or that are going through 2nd and 3rd grade right now. I'm talking to you right now to express my, my deep concern for the, the retention, for the cuts for the retention of teachers and the system of intervention MTSS. The stability of our children Thank you. It depends on, on their teachers and how much they stay. If the teacher stays, or the people that has to stay, it's an expert that knows our community. And to lose them is to break the learning cycle. And then, and my children's development has been vital to, to have the educators and the specialists kind of like Amy Kimura Ms. Herrera, Ms. Linds, Ms. Molina, Mr. B, Ms. Araceli, and Ms. Heather. And the impact that they have had, uh, it shows that the professional and structural support is the strategy, is the key strategy to retain. That has to be a priority. And also regarding the system, MTSS, Also, to cut specialists of reading and math is not— is— we're not saving money. It's not savings. It's generating educational debt. And without the support at Tier 2 and Tier 3, the students that today have some difficulties, they will need more expensive services in the future. I've been a witness on how students go from frustration to success thanks to one specialist, a dedicated specialist. And to eliminate these resources is to take— is to take away the bridge to the future for children and for success. And my concrete— my concrete requests are not to cut budgets and also not to cut positions on the specialists for reading and writing— for reading and Also shielding the specialist, uh, schedule so they can only focus on student intervention, and also to ensure that the budget is there for the professional development, ensuring that the system is sustainable, or students cannot pause their learning while the budget improves."},{"start":3187020,"end":3187196,"speaker":"Q","text":"Thank you."},{"start":3188743,"end":3213839,"speaker":"L","text":"And the success for Hoover School depends on support for everyone. And I'm sure that your support with education will be reflected protecting these vital resources. And thank you very much for your time and to listening to the voices of my community, my Husky community. Thank you. Thank you."},{"start":3216247,"end":3219546,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Christian Vasquez."},{"start":3235240,"end":3235643,"speaker":"R","text":"Gracias."},{"start":3236143,"end":3385587,"speaker":"S","text":"Buenas noches a todos. Gracias por la oportunidad que nos dan de poder Abrir esta mesa para poder conocer nuestras preocupaciones como padre. Yo pertenezco a la, bueno, mi hijo está asistiendo a Clifford, tiene 8 años, va a tercer grado. Mi nombre es Cristian Vázquez, ya le dije, y solamente quiero compartir un poco de mi testimonio de cómo tengo una hija ahorita de 20 años que ella asistió a Kennedy y puedo ver la diferencia en en cómo la educación ha ido se ha ido ha ido evolucionando y cómo ha sido de beneficio hacia mí hacia mi hijo que ahora tiene tres años con mi hija no había tantos recursos que ahora tiene mi hijo y que está aprovechando de una manera grande para poder desarrollar sus habilidades cuando mi hija no tuvo la oportunidad de poder adquirir esos beneficios que ahora tienen. Ahora, cuando hablamos de recorte de personal y de especialistas, gente que se dedica a poder instruir o capacitar a nuestros hijos, a la preocupación de nosotros como padres Viene qué vamos a hacer, cómo vamos a apoyar a nuestros hijos de la misma manera que la escuela los está apoyando actualmente. Entonces, en cierto modo, solamente quería expresar eso, que hoy yo puedo hablar por mi experiencia en Clifford. He encontrado no solamente una escuela donde puedo encontrar apoyos para mi hijo, sino también Prácticamente recursos que no los conocía y por medio del centro de la comunidad he conocido que hay mucha ayuda. Entonces he podido adquirir todo lo que la escuela me ha estado dando y he visto el progreso de mi hijo totalmente aprendiendo inglés en este país. Los recursos han sido muy grandes y yo solamente quería expresar mi Mi testimonio y mi preocupación. Yo creo que como padres también nos preocupamos por eso. Así que gracias. Pasen feliz noche."},{"start":3389290,"end":3390190,"speaker":"A","text":"Muchas gracias, Cristian."},{"start":3391943,"end":3392254,"speaker":"F","text":"It's okay."},{"start":3395425,"end":3548165,"speaker":"L","text":"I will interpret the comment, and the parent stated, \"Hi, good evening. Thank you for the opportunity that you guys gave us to open up this conversation too, so you know our concerns as parents.\" I belong— well, my kid goes to Clifford, and he is 8 years old. He's in 3rd grade. My name is Christian Vasquez, and I just wanted to share a little of my testimony on how I have a daughter right now that she's 20 years old, and she attended Kennedy. And I could— I can see the difference. With how education has evolved as of now and how it has been benefiting my son that right now he's 3 years old. With my daughter, I didn't have that many resources that my son has right now and that he's taking advantage of so he can develop his skills. And Uh, with my daughter, she didn't have the opportunity to be able to acquire these benefits that he has right now. When we're— when we talk about staff and specialist cuts, people that are dedicated and teach our children, our concern as parents is that what are we going to do? Like, how are we going to support our children in the same way that the school is supporting us right now? Thank you. So in a way, I just wanted to share that, that, you know, I can just talk about my experience. And in Clifford, I have found not only a school that I— that where I can find support for my son, but technically I also find resources that I didn't know before. And through the community center, I've known so many support supports that I've been able to use, everything that the school has been giving us. And I've seen the progress in my son and how he learns English in this country. These resources have been very big, and I just wanted to express and share my testimony, right? And my concern as parents as well. You know, we're also concerned about that. So thank you. Have a great night."},{"start":3548165,"end":3556029,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. Our next speaker's card is for Tina Yim. Tina."},{"start":3556029,"end":3688646,"speaker":"R","text":"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the school board. Um, my name is Tina Yim, and I'm a parent of a first grader at Orion Alternative MI. Um, what I wanted to share today was, um, Redwood School— Redwood City School District has a high-quality, award-winning Mandarin immersion program since 2017. The Redwood City Mandarin Immersion Scholars Program is a parent-run organization and has partnered With the Redwood City School District to cover funding gaps for programs' critical, critical staff, including Mandarin-speaking aides, the teacher on special assignment, and the MI curriculum/professional development consultant. Given the projected cuts, the fundraising pressure on families this year has increased from $288,000 In the 2025 to 2020— um, to, um, $410,000 in this 20— um, upcoming 2026 to 2027 school year. And should the district not be able to intervene, that is a 30% increase. And this is an increase from TK through 8th grade. At Orion, RCMIS has been working in coordination with Star Orion PTO and school site council members to think outside the box and to maintain the level of support our MI program needs to function. Making additional cuts to our school site impacts this coordination. School-wide cuts inadvertently impact our program quality by layering added fundraising pressure on our families that are already giving, um, to maintain basic level of support."},{"start":3688646,"end":3688855,"speaker":"Q","text":"Thank you."},{"start":3690197,"end":3722399,"speaker":"R","text":"At Orion— I'm at Kennedy Middle School. Um, RCMIS continues to work with Principal Leonardo and Zula Schutt and the Kennedy MI community to grow the MI program through 8th grade. We advocate for the retention of Orion's bilingual guest teacher, and we respectfully request that the district continue its investment in the growth of the MI program by continuing its funding. Thank you."},{"start":3725134,"end":3729501,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much, Tina. Our next speaker is Araceli Flores."},{"start":3736839,"end":3871278,"speaker":"J","text":"Good evening, my name is Araceli Flores Mendoza and I am a Resource Learning Center teacher at Hoover Community As a proud Hoover alumna, this school holds a very special place in my heart. I attended Hoover from preschool to 8th grade. Sorry, that was my check. And it was here where I learned the true meaning of friendship, support, compassion, and most importantly, community. From a young age, my parents instilled in me the value of education. With their encouragement and the unwavering dedication of my teachers, I was able to reach my full academic potential. Thank you. Hoover did not simply educate— Hoover did not simply educate me. It helped shape the person and educator I am today. Many years later, like so many educators, I returned to serve the very community that once invested in me. Each day, I see my younger self reflected in the students I support. I am here to ensure that they feel seen, valued, and capable Oh, and capable. When something truly matters, we do not stand alone. We stand and rise together. Students must feel supported in order to succeed. Our community is strongest when every student is given the meaningful opportunity to thrive. At this time, our special education students and the educators who serve them need more, more resources, more staffing, and more support. Thank you. Currently, we have three full-time RLC teachers with very minimal aid support, which requires us to spread ourselves thin and limit the level of individualized guidance we know our students deserve. This is simply this is not simply a matter of compliance; it is a matter of commitment, and our students are absolutely worth that commitment. It is my hope that I can demonstrate to my current students. And as well to— and as well as those who will come, that they are already intelligent, capable, and deserving of high expectations. With appropriate support and adequate resources, they have the ability to achieve their goals and reach their full potential. This is why I am here today, to advocate for the needs of my students. Thank you for your time and consideration."},{"start":3871278,"end":3879615,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much, Ariz. And our last in-person speaker card that I have is for Lisa Onofre."},{"start":3889296,"end":4054592,"speaker":"P","text":"Buenas noches, miembros del board. Muchas gracias por permitirnos esta oportunidad de dirigirnos a ustedes con recomendaciones y preocupaciones que tenemos sobre lo que va a acontecer con el. El presupuesto del distrito escolar. Mi hija estudia en Clifford. Estoy muy satisfecha del abordaje cultural y educativo que se da en la escuela, así que mis ideas van a ser alrededor de todo el sistema educativo. El primero es que en estos recortes por ninguna razón se vaya a recortar el tema de los alimentos ni hacia los estudiantes. Pareciera sentido común, pero muchas situaciones que son de sentido común las estamos perdiendo. Entonces, por ningún Ninguna razón se vaya a reducir los alimentos ni los empleos de las personas que se dedican a proveer la alimentación a nuestros hijos e hijas, porque todo lo podemos atravesar pero no con hambre. Y los alimentos escolares es algo que no se disfruta en todos Estados Unidos y que ha costado muchas décadas tenerlo en los que sí los tenemos. Segundo, yo acuerpo el tema de las matemáticas, los números en el tema de matemáticas. Van empeorando a nivel federal, a nivel estatal también. Y como miembra de la comunidad hispana, me parece importante que desde las escuelas públicas hagamos un tema estructural: que nuestro nivel de matemáticas sea lo más alto posible. El condado de San Mateo y otros condados como Santa Clara deberíamos aspirar a educar nuestros propios ingenieros e ingenieras. Estados Unidos es un país deficitario en ingenieros e ingenieras. Y hacer esta inversión en la educación en matemáticas es importante. En Clifford se retiró, ya no se está dando el engagement enrichment en matemáticas porque la empresa subió el costo. Entonces no puede ser elitista tener un manejo decente de las matemáticas. Y por último, hay una idea, en algunas de las comunicaciones lo he visto, de que para subsidiar este déficit No. No, no es lícito que se vendan algunos activos del distrito. Los activos y el patrimonio material e inmaterial debe quedarse para las escuelas. En el momento que pasa a manos privadas, son los intereses privados que dicen qué se hace con ese real estate o lo que sea. Y bueno, puede incluso incrementar los costos de la renta o de la propiedad y no estar al servicio Muchas gracias, Lisa."},{"start":4054592,"end":4129585,"speaker":"L","text":"Um, yes, so I will interpret the comment. It was, uh, good evening, board. Uh, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to talk to you and, uh, to give a recommendation and our concerns that we have, uh, while With what is going to happen with the budget in the school district. So my daughter goes to Clifford, and we are very satisfied with the cultural approach and educational that we have in school. So my ideas are more around all of the educational system. So the first one is that. During these cuts for no reason. We, we, we have to cut people in the, in the food, on the, on the cafeteria and the meals for the students. And it seems like it's common sense, but there are many things that are, that are common sense right now and that we are losing. So for no reason to reduce the food or the meals and also not, and not the employees that provide the food and the meals for our children."},{"start":4129585,"end":4129858,"speaker":"P","text":"Thank you."},{"start":4130276,"end":4161807,"speaker":"L","text":"Because we can go through everything, but not when we're hungry. And also, the, the school meals is not something that goes, you know, that we have in, in, in the United States. And it's been, it's been taking many decades to have it. So we do have it. And second, I want to emphasize the math matter. The numbers regarding the math has, have been decreasing in a federal level."},{"start":4161807,"end":4161999,"speaker":"T","text":"Thank you."},{"start":4162496,"end":4223134,"speaker":"L","text":"And in a state level as well. And as a member, as a Hispanic, as a member of the Hispanic community, I think that it's very important that the public schools are talking about a structural topic that our math level needs to be as high as possible. The San Mateo County and other counties as Santa Clara, we need to aspire to educate our own engineers in the United States. It's a country that has deficits of engineers, and to invest in the education and the math education, it's important. In Clifford, they're not giving out anymore. They don't have engagement enrichment in math because the company increased the cost. So it doesn't have to be— it doesn't have to be from the— it doesn't have to be for rich people to manage math."},{"start":4223134,"end":4223313,"speaker":"D","text":"Thank you."},{"start":4224128,"end":4266876,"speaker":"L","text":"So, and for the last thing, there's an idea in one of the communications. I've seen it that to subsidize the deficit, we need to sell some assets and from the district and assets and property, material property, and we have to keep that for the schools. In the moment that goes to private hands, you know, there's, there's different interests and private interests like real estate and all of that. And, well, even, uh, you know, they increment some of the, the increase the cost, the property costs, and they, they, they do not support education in the long run. So, uh, that would be it. Thank you very much."},{"start":4266876,"end":4276675,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. And looking online, looks like we have— is that one comment?"},{"start":4277160,"end":4277580,"speaker":"E","text":"You have 2."},{"start":4278163,"end":4278325,"speaker":"I","text":"2."},{"start":4278584,"end":4279458,"speaker":"A","text":"I'm just looking at the wrong—"},{"start":4279458,"end":4281869,"speaker":"C","text":"Tina Mercer and Laura. Clearly looking in the wrong place."},{"start":4281966,"end":4286941,"speaker":"A","text":"Um, so let's just go with Tina Mercer. Tina Mercer."},{"start":4286941,"end":4289221,"speaker":"E","text":"Oh, there's more now. There's more now."},{"start":4289221,"end":4294584,"speaker":"C","text":"There's also one on the spreadsheet. I don't know if that was the one you were looking at."},{"start":4294584,"end":4295017,"speaker":"F","text":"Yes."},{"start":4295130,"end":4298212,"speaker":"K","text":"Yeah, got it."},{"start":4298742,"end":4301745,"speaker":"C","text":"So, okay, great."},{"start":4301938,"end":4303495,"speaker":"A","text":"We'll just go down the list of hands then."},{"start":4304185,"end":4304683,"speaker":"I","text":"All right."},{"start":4305727,"end":4308344,"speaker":"A","text":"So Tina, you have the floor for 3 minutes."},{"start":4315902,"end":4416878,"speaker":"D","text":"Hi there, this is Tina Mercer. I'm the principal of Roosevelt. Just wanted to touch base specifically on the admin IEP sub-coverage. I just want to speak specifically to our TK-5 schools, and there are 6 of us. We don't have assistant principals, which means an admin needs to be in attendance in order to make the legally viable IEP meetings. In doing so, I just want to give you an idea of how many meetings this would mean if we didn't have admin subs. So at Roosevelt, we have approximately 150 meetings per year, IEP meetings. We spoke to the other principals. Henry Ford and Taft both have around 135, give or take. Largely because in our, in our cases, a lot of that has to do with the fact The fact that we have 3 or 4 specialized learning centers. So those— all of the students in those classrooms specifically have IEP meetings, frequently more than one per year. We also have a lot of transitions into these classes at the end of the year, and we have transitions out for all of our 5th graders as well. On top of that, we have Adelante Selby and Orion, who both have probably somewhere around 85 meetings per year. And Garfield's probably in a similar Similar boat to that. So from my end, I just want to advocate for at least the TK-5 schools having some admin sub coverage during the school year. Otherwise, if I look at my own school specifically, I'm looking at about 150 IEP meetings, which takes me out of doing my other roles for probably 250 hours per year, which is a lot of hours."},{"start":4416878,"end":4417152,"speaker":"P","text":"Thank you."},{"start":4417945,"end":4424041,"speaker":"D","text":"Of not being able to be with students, be with our staff, and so forth. Okay, thank you."},{"start":4424041,"end":4431707,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much, Dina. Our next online is Laura Ramirez."},{"start":4441690,"end":4443048,"speaker":"C","text":"She needs to unmute. There you go."},{"start":4444190,"end":4446725,"speaker":"T","text":"Hola, buenas tardes."},{"start":4446725,"end":4447640,"speaker":"Q","text":"Hola."},{"start":4447640,"end":4577980,"speaker":"T","text":"Mi nombre es Laura y gracias. Buenas tardes, buenas tardes a todos. Mi nombre es Laura Ramírez, mis hijos asisten a Adelante Selby, a inmersión al español, y pues me gustaría dirigirles un mensaje a la mesa directiva. Entiendo que los recortes presupuestales son necesarios y que las decisiones que enfrentan no son fáciles. Aprecio el trabajo que realizan y la responsabilidad que Administrar recursos limitados para todo el distrito. Hablo hoy como madre con mis dos hijos que asisten en adelante, Selby, y quiero pedir que por favor protejamos todo aquello que impacta directamente el aprendizaje, la seguridad y el bienestar de los estudiantes. Me hace muy feliz escuchar a mis hijos decir que disfrutan sus clases de STEAM, arte, baile, y cómo disfrutan el tiempo con sus maestros, y cómo se emocionan al compartirme lo que aprenden. Pero al mismo tiempo me entristece pensar que con cada recorte estas experiencias se reducen a menos horas, menos oportunidades de explorar y de desarrollar sus talentos. Estas áreas no son un lujo, son fundamentales para el desarrollo integral de los estudiantes. También quiero destacar la importancia de los recursos que ayudan a integrar no solo a los estudiantes, sino también a los padres como parte activa de la comunidad escolar. Cuando las familias se sienten bienvenidas, informadas y acompañadas, los estudiantes tienen mejores resultados. La participación de los padres tampoco es un lujo, es una herramienta clave para el éxito escolar. Me gustaría agregar también que por favor el distrito pueda seguir apoyando organizaciones como Familias Unidas, que han sido fundamentales para ayudar a los padres a involucrarse en la vida estudiantil de sus hijos. Gracias a estos programas, muchas familias encuentran la manera de apoyar mejor a sus hijos, comunicarse con las escuelas y convertirse en aliados del sistema educativo. del sistema educativo. Entiendo que habrá decisiones difíciles, pero mi esperanza es que al hacer los recortes se priorice, se priorice aquello que realmente sostiene a nuestros estudiantes y a sus familias. Proteger estos recursos es invertir en el presente y el futuro de nuestras escuelas y de nuestros estudiantes. Muchas gracias por escucharme."},{"start":4577980,"end":4580930,"speaker":"A","text":"Muchas gracias."},{"start":4586872,"end":4768863,"speaker":"L","text":"Okay, I will interpret the comment. Parent stated, good evening. My students attend to Adelante Selby in Spanish immersion. So I wanted to say a message to the school board. I do understand that the budget cuts are necessary and that the decisions that you guys face are not easy. I appreciate the work that you guys do and the responsibility. Uh, that it takes to managing resources for the whole resource, for the whole district. And I talk today as a mom, uh, that attends to Adelante Selby, or my students go to Adelante Selby. And I wanted to ask to protect everything that impacts directly to the learning, the safety, and the wellness of the students. So I'm very happy when my, when my kids share with me that they enjoy their classes. Thank you. The STEAM classes, art, dancing, and how they enjoy the time with their teachers and how they get excited when they share what they learned in school. At the same time, I get— it gets me sad to think that with these cuts, those experiences are reduced to less hours. There are less opportunities to explore and to develop their talents. These areas are not a luxury. They're fundamental for the development for the students. And also, I wanted to emphasize the importance of the resources that not only help the students but also the families to feel part of the community, to feel as an active part of the community. And when these families feel that they are welcome, they are informed, and they are not alone, the students have better results. And the participation with the parents is not a luxury either. It's a key tool for this, for the educational success. I also wanted to add, if the district can keep on supporting organizations Such as Familias Unidas that have been fundamental to help parents to be involved in the academic life of their students. Thanks to these programs, many families find a way to support better their students. They find ways to communicate with them and they are— and they become partners to the educational system. And And also, I do understand that there are hard decisions or difficult decisions, but I hope that when you guys make the cuts, we can prioritize what is really important for our students and for our families. And to protect these resources is to invest in the present and the future of our schools and our students. Thank you very much for listening to us. Thank you."},{"start":4770840,"end":4776694,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. Our next online speaker is Lilia Amalia Valdez."},{"start":4776694,"end":4850104,"speaker":"Q","text":"Good afternoon, and thank you for having me today. My name is Lilia Amalia Valdez Monet. My kids go to Hoover Elementary. My older son Logan is in the 6th grade, and my daughter Alexis Goes to kinder. I want to use this great opportunity to express to the board of directors that the resources of counselors and mental health at school is important to Hoover. My older son Logan, after the pandemic, had a lot of anxiety in school, and this affected his learning. After he got a counselor at school, it helped him, and he. improved, and he does not feel as anxious as before. This resource— sorry, excuse me— this resource not only helps my son but many kids at school. Having counselors for kids is now necessary with all the things happening in the world. Without this assistance, many students will not get the help they need and will not get better in school and in their learning. Thank you so much for having me and hearing me today."},{"start":4850104,"end":4859510,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. Our next online speaker is Rita Melton."},{"start":4859510,"end":4865664,"speaker":"L","text":"Hi, good evening."},{"start":4865729,"end":4898298,"speaker":"U","text":"My name is Rita Melton and I am a 4th grade teacher at Adelante Selby. Thank you, administrators and board members, for Thank you for giving us this opportunity to address regarding the budget cuts. Um, I appreciate the opportunity to share my concerns as a teacher in this district. I would love to advocate for 3 important areas. First, mental health professionals are a critical part of our students' daily lives. Without these professionals, teachers are left trying to fill this role, which subtracts from our ability to focus on the great amount of curriculum that we have."},{"start":4898298,"end":4898555,"speaker":"J","text":"Thank you."},{"start":4900159,"end":4967827,"speaker":"U","text":"Students' mental health has been deeply spotlighted after COVID, and it is a pivotal part of the educational day. Second, I would like to advocate for our MTSS TOSAs. That role is critical. The numbers of IEPs and 504s are only increasing year by year, and this role takes great pressure off of both our, our principals and off of our resource teachers who are doing an amazing Great job. And the last position I would like to advocate for is our guest teachers, who are so much more than just teachers. They are everywhere at all times, filling so many, so many roles that, that also take off pressure off of our principals, our teachers, and also play the role as de facto health supports as well. When they are available, they can come to the aid of teachers who have students that are And yes, principals can take funds from other areas to fill some of these positions, but that also just means deeper cuts for our site, and that hurts our students' achievement. Thank you for the time."},{"start":4967827,"end":4977035,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much, Rita. Um, seeing Laura again, should be—"},{"start":4978316,"end":4978575,"speaker":"H","text":"nope."},{"start":4981564,"end":4984071,"speaker":"A","text":"Yeah, I'm saying Rita Melton next."},{"start":4984265,"end":4986173,"speaker":"C","text":"No, that was just that was empty."},{"start":4986675,"end":4988599,"speaker":"A","text":"Yes, Dora Ramirez."},{"start":4988712,"end":4989278,"speaker":"H","text":"There you go, Dora."},{"start":4995633,"end":5104587,"speaker":"F","text":"Me llamo Dora Ramirez. En la actualidad tengo dos hijos en la escuela Hoover: Santiago en segundo grado, Angelique en octavo grado. Mi hija Angelique está en educación especial y quiero decirles que a pesar de su condición, mi hija le echa muchas ganas. Y este, las matemáticas me gustaría que pusieran apoyo extra porque ella va baja en matemáticas porque las pusieron más difíciles. Y para los recortes, no me gustaría que quitaran música y STEAM. Música es terapia para los niños, empiezan felices con la música y terminan felices. Y también, este, me gustaría que abrieran más salones para educación especial de secundaria 6 y 8 grados, 6, 7 y 8 grados. Sería importante para que le den, estén ahí los jóvenes, porque también ellos tienen hermanitos y los mandan a otra escuela. Y para mí sería importante que los dejaran allí. Y como les digo, para mí todos, todo es importante. No me gustaría que hicieran estos recortes. Y que pasen feliz noche. Gracias."},{"start":5107472,"end":5107960,"speaker":"A","text":"Gracias, Dora."},{"start":5112363,"end":5200789,"speaker":"L","text":"Okay, my name is Dora, and, um, and the— Uh, right now I have 2 children, 2 students in Hoover School, uh, Santiago in 2nd grade and Angelique in 8th grade. And my daughter Angelique, uh, she has a special education, and I want to let you know that even that she has her condition, she tries really hard and Math, I would like to have extra support because she is lower in math because they are they are increasing their difficulty. They're more hard. So for the cuts, I wouldn't like you guys to cut music or steam. Music is therapy. It's therapy for the students. They they start their day happy with music. And they walk happily. And I would also like you guys to open more special ed classrooms for middle school, 6th and 8th grade, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. And also it would be important so they could, you know, so the students can be there because they also have smaller siblings."},{"start":5200870,"end":5201142,"speaker":"P","text":"Thank you."},{"start":5201142,"end":5225789,"speaker":"L","text":"And they send them to a different school. So to me, it would be important to keep them there. Um, also, uh, as I was just saying, you know, everything's important to me, and I wouldn't want you guys to make cuts. Um, and, and, and have a great night. Thank you."},{"start":5228416,"end":5235903,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you so much. And with that, I'm not seeing any more hands up on the Zoom. No more in-person comment cards?"},{"start":5236405,"end":5236437,"speaker":"F","text":"No?"},{"start":5236760,"end":5251265,"speaker":"A","text":"Okay, so I think that concludes our public comment section, and now we will move to board discussion. Okay, so who'd like to go first?"},{"start":5251265,"end":5252689,"speaker":"B","text":"I can start us off."},{"start":5252997,"end":5253353,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you, Mike."},{"start":5253401,"end":5272257,"speaker":"B","text":"Can I just ask just a couple clarifying questions, sort of as feedback from the comments, to get in there? Some people had talked about, um, I did not hear you mention in the list of things that you were considering positions around like Tier 2 or Tier 3 services, um, specialists or anything like that, right? Like, that wasn't— that's not right."},{"start":5272257,"end":5272658,"speaker":"E","text":"That's not happening."},{"start":5272658,"end":5297133,"speaker":"B","text":"I mean, I, I think we all sort of have the, um, the same sort of non-negotiables around here about like we really want to keep our MTSS capacity and like keep up our work on chronic absenteeism that we've been Doing EL supports. We want to make sure English learner supports remain and that the ELPAC growth that we're seeing and a reduction in long-term English learners, we're still looking at that. Special education compliance, even though there's a big reduction in there, it's not about—"},{"start":5297133,"end":5297892,"speaker":"C","text":"We still need to comply."},{"start":5297892,"end":5502783,"speaker":"B","text":"Yeah, it's not about reducing the services that you're offering here. And then instructional time in core classroom, that's obviously the last. Don't even put that on the table. And then on the food services, it's Self, it's funded by special funds, right? So food nutritional services. Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure because I was I heard a little bit of concern about that, and I didn't think that those were quite on the on the table. One thing I did want to say: I just want to thank everybody for coming out and sharing your experience and your comments. One of the things that really hit me is just the amount of impact that the school district is having on our families. It's incredible. So I want to. I want to say thanks first of all to the staff here at the district office, our principals that are here online, um, you know, our teachers that joined us tonight or, or online or just are working out there, all of our classified staff. Hi, Maria, thanks for coming and joining tonight. Um, the amount of impact that you're having for these families, you can see it's deeply meaningful, um, to everybody to be here and spend some time talking about it tonight. And I just thought that was really, really powerful. Um, and I want to thank everyone for sharing their First of all, their personal experiences, but also highlighting what's really important to you and, and how, how the school district is really impacting you. The— I also want to thank the committee. I know there's some committee members online. It's been, you know, it's a lot of— couple, several meetings, couple hours. Some ran over a couple hours. Y'all did a lot of production for it. You know, and it's like there's a lot of work that goes into sort of naming the structural problem honestly, and then, you know, bringing it forward in a way That, that aims for transparency and aims for sustainability. Um, it does feel like the proposals that you're starting to put together, uh, will be kind of anchored, will keep us anchored in sort of kind of our mission, right, for safe, supportive, joyful, and inclusive schools, and let us, you know, still achieve our vision of really high intellectual performance for every student. Um, so I, I do appreciate that work. Um, I noticed that a lot of this stuff is Is kind of vague, you know. I mean, you're a little bit specific about the areas where it's going to be, but the actual specifics— and I understand why it's going to be there, but right now it's kind of a list. So I had a request for when this comes back, um, to help us kind of put a framework around how to, how to think about these. Um, I'm going to propose these. I don't know if other board members have things that would help for, for each one of these. If we could like have a framework around like, first of all, what is the reduction and like what is, what is that trying to solve? Uh, Um, are the savings one-time or ongoing, like the financial parts of it? Um, but then is there student impact? If it's impacting students, who and how many? If there's a way we could get that for the, for the different ones, because not all of them will have direct impact. Um, I think it's really important that, particularly given our variation across the schools, that equity is explicit here. So some sort of equity indicator on it. Um, maybe it's the number of unduplicated students impacted Or whether it's special ed or if it affects English learners, just something in there that can give us sort of an equity impact. Um, and then some operational risk. Uh, what I worry about is as we reduce at the, you know, maybe at the district office, I know some positions are not currently filled and you're already covering that work, but does, does the work stop? Does it go to other people at the district? Does it get pushed down to the sites, um, for the administrators?"},{"start":5502783,"end":5506331,"speaker":"C","text":"You know, when you're an administrator It works. It's a lot different."},{"start":5506331,"end":5506604,"speaker":"F","text":"Yeah."},{"start":5506604,"end":5533395,"speaker":"C","text":"We don't have a union. We work within a job description, but that job description always has other duties as assigned. So with that being said, that's what's been happening, especially in one of the categories where we've had a person that's been on leave and now that person is resigning. So that position has been absorbed by others around the table."},{"start":5535574,"end":5550900,"speaker":"B","text":"Yeah, right. And so as more changes happen, um, is it going to be more absorbed? I mean, some might, might stop. Like, maybe it's a role— I think you'd mentioned that there's some positions that we, we just aren't going to need anymore because they're filling in for an absence."},{"start":5551143,"end":5562155,"speaker":"C","text":"Um, true, but, but those— the, the position that I just spoke about, uh, still is needed for supports at the, at the school sites."},{"start":5562317,"end":5562496,"speaker":"E","text":"Okay."},{"start":5562643,"end":5565525,"speaker":"C","text":"When we don't want to put That's on the principle."},{"start":5565525,"end":5565910,"speaker":"F","text":"Okay."},{"start":5565910,"end":5581705,"speaker":"C","text":"We can keep it here, and— but we have many of us doing things, um, even some of our people in the audience, uh, that have taken on the experience of moving in a different direction with their job decision."},{"start":5581705,"end":5582058,"speaker":"R","text":"Yeah."},{"start":5582058,"end":5639545,"speaker":"B","text":"So anyways, I don't need to know it tonight for each of the ones that are there, but something when, when we're trying to make a decision about it, it sort of feels like to me that would be kind of the information that around the different ones that would help me understand kind of the priority, what the real impact is, and, and how to, how to, how to think about them. Um, and finally, I just want to acknowledge there's a whole human side to this. I know that for our families, um, and our, our families and our staff, it's really stressful to live in kind of this uncertainty of not knowing what's going to happen. It's also very confusing about what can be cut, what can't be, you know, all of that. And then even, you know, even when it happens through attrition, it's stressful for, you know, the, the staff, for our colleagues. It's their colleagues, their relationships. There's everything there. So I'm just, you know, I'm grateful for staff, and I just want to make sure that as we communicate this and we go through this effort, our communication and support continues to reflect our values."},{"start":5639545,"end":5642428,"speaker":"A","text":"Thank you, Mike."},{"start":5642498,"end":5642723,"speaker":"E","text":"Well said."},{"start":5645184,"end":5648252,"speaker":"A","text":"Sure, and like, let's also have it be back and forth too."},{"start":5648252,"end":5842170,"speaker":"K","text":"I'll echo a lot of what Mike said. I won't repeat it all because we've had plenty of meeting already. But I think one of the big things— one, I love the framework that Mike presented. I think to the same point, it's really helpful for me to understand what the actual impact of each of these cuts are from operations. Financial and personnel. And on the operational piece, I think what Mike was saying— I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but there's a point where I already know the district staff is doing above and beyond their workload, and I assume that there's going to be a point where it has to break. And I think what we want to make sure is that we do not get to that point. And so again, obviously decisions are being made. So, Dr. Baker, I know that you're having discussions already So like, I assume that's the case, but it's helped— it would help ground me in understanding that. The one other piece just that I'll point out just for the circumstances that I really appreciate all the people, obviously all the work from the committee, all the people that came to speak, to represent and advocate for how they perceive their various communities. And I really appreciate that we're getting a variety One thing that sticks out to me is that I think across the board what I heard was all of the positive things that the districts and the schools are doing, and their questions of, can we please make sure that we're protecting this? Which is great in one way, because it means that we're doing quite a bit that's really helpful and appreciated and moving the community forward. But then it also turns us to the reality. I think of— we're in a difficult situation, and that's not because it's a situation of our own making where we were spending money irresponsibly. It's the reality of we don't have the funds to ensure that all students are thriving, and so we have to make choices. And while I appreciate all the advocacy that everyone came in with, a lot of what I heard was please protect this, which is great and totally makes sense. But I think from the board's perspective, the actual question is, what is the trade-off? Because when we work with limited resources, the question is not please don't cut this. It is please cut— please don't cut this and instead cut something else. And it's just a challenge. And I think with that, with the proposal as is, it's super helpful. And I know a lot of work went into it. I'm a little bit— I'd like to better understand, um, what the actual options are, because it seems like it's— we have a specific hole. Uh, this gets us pretty close, a little bit above, um, to what that hole is. Um, but I don't know what the alternatives are. Um, is it like an all-or-nothing, like this is, this is what is proposed, um, or nothing? Or we will take elements of this but only within this subset of items? Or are there other things that were kind of on the table? And that's not to say that— please do, I just, I want to understand as a framework there."},{"start":5842170,"end":5923375,"speaker":"C","text":"We looked at everything that was— oh, with the exception of the guest teachers, with the exception of the IEP coverage at the school sites, we looked items that we could reduce that would not touch the classroom, with the exception of what I said. The guest teacher will touch the classroom because those guest teachers are being utilized for training when a teacher is going to meet with a principal and the principal's doing some training with teachers. Those guest teachers are in the classrooms. They're the sub. They're also for, you know, other types of activities that the school has planned. So That does affect the classroom. But when you look at what affect— the other piece that affects, which we try to hammer out, but we couldn't find anything different, is the piece about the IEP coverage. Because you, you heard Tina and the numbers, and to get into classrooms to do other items that you have to do just on a daily basis at a school site, and then also have That time away from those other areas, it's very difficult for a principal. So that's why the give is, is, is there coming from, from the principals."},{"start":5923519,"end":5923551,"speaker":"U","text":"I—"},{"start":5923904,"end":6123266,"speaker":"C","text":"we get it. The other pieces that you have before you, um, some have to do with attrition, some have to do with additional, um, uh, sub-administrators at sites for this year or for the last couple years. They received This one school received a coordinator, but it was only for 2 years, so now that's going to be gone. So with that being said, it's pretty far away from the classroom. We're not touching art, we're not touching music, we're not touching PE, we're not touching counselors, even though that was brought up. That was brought up. Um, the other piece about the MTSS, we're not touching MTSS either. I know, um, Anna's working very closely with The group to maintain that within the LCAP. So that's not even on here. Um, the other piece that I want to just acknowledge at this point in time— yes, we do have school facilities that are being rented out at this point in time to other entities. If we were to sell those school facilities, remember, you cannot utilize that money. for operating expenses. It can only be utilized for facilities. That's law. So even though people think, yes, we have these sites that they're being rented and it's helping us with the small amounts we get, especially from the charter school, um, because of law, but, um, that money is going back into the general fund and we utilize those dollars. But if you were to sell them, it goes back into facilities. It cannot be used for operating expenses. So I just want the community to understand that that is law. And that's why so many superintendents and boards, when it comes— point to, like my colleague at Jefferson working on closing 4 schools, people say sell it, sell it. No, that's not going to happen because it's law. We cannot use it for operating expenses. So just get that out. There, but going back to this spreadsheet, we did our best for several meetings, long meetings in my office, to come up and back and forth on that whiteboard and look at everything. And this is what we garnered that we could feel comfortable that it's not going to really impact those classes. Now the piece that does is, as you're looking at contract, where we have a contract for— well, TK has its own, you know, uh, 20 students to 1 teacher, 1 instructional assistant. That's law, we can't change that. But our contract is— when I'm going to have you help me out— K to— We strive for 20. We strive for 25, but we go to 28. And then 31 moving forward. So that's the piece that if you're concerned about, which you pro— which when you start seeing, um, the number here of enrollment in the 17, that's the piece that will impact schools."},{"start":6123266,"end":6141991,"speaker":"K","text":"Okay, I think that's, that's super helpful. And just to summarize, what I think I heard was if we take it as a foundational idea that we want to make sure that we are cutting as far away from student learning as possible, this is kind of the list."},{"start":6141991,"end":6143472,"speaker":"C","text":"This is the list."},{"start":6143472,"end":6180017,"speaker":"K","text":"That, that, that's— that was— yeah, that was my big question. Um, on the, the teachers piece, and I think this, um, goes along with what, uh, Trustee Wells mentioned earlier, it, it would be helpful for me also to understand, not today, but when it comes up, Where those positions are looking, or where they are spread across, just in terms from an equitable lens, and whether or not those— and I believe the decisions were made based on student count and enrollment, whatever that is— just to have that fleshed out would be helpful for me to understand. Okay, thank you. All the things you said, I assumed, but it's great to put out there publicly as well, because I know you guys have put in a lot of work."},{"start":6180338,"end":6180563,"speaker":"B","text":"Thank you."},{"start":6184030,"end":6199835,"speaker":"I","text":"Yeah, I think, um, along the lines of what Mike was asking, will we be— know by the time in February which site admins are going to use some of their Measure U to fund? And then what's the kind of the trade-off there, or is that going to happen?"},{"start":6199835,"end":6228429,"speaker":"C","text":"I don't know by February if they will have that. That's really— it's normally it comes a little later in the school year because some are also, um, looking at their PTAs and PTOs What that's going to garner, even though we did hear from one of our school sites that it's becoming more of a hardship on the community, knowing that we as a district are seeing what other fundings are out there."},{"start":6228477,"end":6228880,"speaker":"G","text":"But that's—"},{"start":6228944,"end":6235398,"speaker":"C","text":"those are grant dollars, and, you know, grant dollars are not forever. And see what else is available that we can tag on to."},{"start":6235398,"end":6247141,"speaker":"I","text":"And then I just wanted to understand that if I understand correctly, Specifically the SPED reduction. So we're expecting attrition in 8th grade, right? But potentially we can be getting—"},{"start":6247141,"end":6271158,"speaker":"C","text":"Potentially it could be coming forward with a student. But at this point in time, we have some— we have 8th graders that are graduating, going on to the high school district. We have a few students coming back to us from an NPS, which is, which is great. And then we also have a few students that are exiting Our, our special ed coming into the mainstream."},{"start":6271158,"end":6279420,"speaker":"I","text":"Okay, so then to like Mike's framework, this would not be like a set one time, like we know this is going to be a reduction that we can count on."},{"start":6279420,"end":6311046,"speaker":"C","text":"And as Rick pointed out, these are reductions that are ongoing. And now the special ed could vary depending on, you know, student need. We always have to keep that in the forefront because special ed is not funded fully Fully, as you all know, and that's in every district in the state of California. It's not funded fully, and our cost at this point in time is about $20 million from our unrestricted general fund."},{"start":6311046,"end":6323014,"speaker":"I","text":"And then my last question was, if we did want to fund the IEP sub admin sub, that's something that would come from the district. This is not something each school is going to—"},{"start":6323030,"end":6350120,"speaker":"G","text":"right, it would have to come from the So thank you again, everyone that showed up here and that made comments, and even for those that didn't make comments or are here just for support. I appreciate everything that the committee has done. And again, I'm not going to repeat everything, but just— I'm wondering if obviously this is the list."},{"start":6350120,"end":6350253,"speaker":"J","text":"Yes."},{"start":6353679,"end":6380669,"speaker":"G","text":"I understand if we cut them, they will no longer have a job. But have we considered maybe asking those same guest teachers, or maybe reducing the number of guest teachers, and maybe just reducing, unfortunately, but their benefits, to where they will still have a job with Redwood City, but just no longer getting benefits that would then save Redwood City money? I think that's a great idea. City some money. That's just, you know, that is a thought."},{"start":6380910,"end":6440230,"speaker":"C","text":"Um, the rationale for us back, uh, during COVID to go with a guest teacher and have benefits was to make sure that you would have the same body that would be continuous every day at that school. Um, I don't know if they would be committed without the benefits because benefits is a big piece, uh, to anyone's salary, and it does, you So it's a real perk for a substitute to have benefits because when I talk about it to my colleagues, I'm speaking superintendents up and down the peninsula, think you're doing what? And yeah, and it's really helped us with our sub issue that we had right after COVID, which was enormous. If you remember, Anno, every time you needed a sub at your school site. So it's a thought we can, we can go in that direction and see. What we come up with. But, um, that's why we went in that direction with the benefits."},{"start":6440230,"end":6508984,"speaker":"G","text":"Great. Um, and then when Tina made a comment regarding like the number of meetings that, if I'm understanding, she would have to go to those meetings, right? And then therefore miss the observation and stuff. I'm just wondering, um, she also mentioned I guess they 2 or 3 more like specialized classes. I know Hoover has a lot more too. They are a K-8. When we look at numbers like she's talking about 150 versus like Henry Ford and Taft at 135, and I believe she said Adelante Selby and some other schools like 85. Have we considered— I mean, I guess to say What— how much of a burden it will be for those K-5 principals. I mean, and I understand, I'm sure you guys as committee have probably talked about it. And just for the, um, the people in the audience, obviously we don't know this. Uh, the committee was, um, given the information, but, um, this is why this is a discussion."},{"start":6508984,"end":6563266,"speaker":"C","text":"So we can do, as, as, as my colleagues and myself around this table, is go back with just the K-5 and see. And we had talked We talked with, um, when we're making our rounds, we, we talked to the principal about, you know, the, the amount of time that you need for these IEPs. The— and, and Tina was a very, uh, instructive— instructed to us about, you know, the real reality that she has to deal with and what that does for her at her school site. So with that being said, what is that cost going to be and how many days is she going need per week, and then let's calculate that out. And we could do that for all of our K-5s. We have not done that yet, and that's something we have discussed, uh, in our meetings, that we should— we could— let's calculate, get the principals in here, and let's calculate what this would look like."},{"start":6563266,"end":6567434,"speaker":"G","text":"Really, those were my only comments."},{"start":6567916,"end":6568109,"speaker":"C","text":"Thank you."},{"start":6568109,"end":6614289,"speaker":"B","text":"It's real fast on that administrator one. Like, maybe one way to think about it is, is there a way to make the number of IEPs IEPs that have to be handled kind of equitable across the school so that it's not like almost double at one school what it is at another. And kind of— no, no, no, I don't mean make the IEPs, I meant bringing an administrator to help with it so the load is, is, uh, equitable. Yeah, sorry, I realize you can't, um, change that. Uh, and then, um, can I ask a quick question about the, the guest teacher too? Just, um, because from COVID you reminded me Like there was a time where I think you all were actually going into school, into classrooms to fill the sub need because it was missing. And that was sort of the impetus for wanting to bring in the guest teacher. But it's morphed now, and I think it's not so much—"},{"start":6614289,"end":6615380,"speaker":"C","text":"More than a sub."},{"start":6615380,"end":6617178,"speaker":"B","text":"Yeah, it's like— Yeah."},{"start":6617467,"end":6642576,"speaker":"C","text":"With the requirement that we have placed upon the principals in the school site, with the type of planning that we want the principal to do with the teachers, Per grade level when we want them to look at data and develop next steps. Who goes into those classrooms, right, where the principal is meeting with those teachers? I see Lupa nodding up and down. It's those guest teachers."},{"start":6642576,"end":6642946,"speaker":"B","text":"Yes."},{"start":6642946,"end":6658891,"speaker":"C","text":"And you have somebody that is, that is known. The kids know. So it's not that person that's coming in for one day and who knows what's going to happen in the classroom, right? When we were all kids and subs came in and Um, so no, it's more than, you know—"},{"start":6658891,"end":6689155,"speaker":"B","text":"Yeah, yeah. And given, given how, how highly correlated planning time and fully funded coaching is to student outcomes, I mean, it might be nice when we're kind of looking at this all again, and if there's like a framework that can help us through the decision to see kind of how, how that— how you're thinking about that impact of, you know, the planning time, uh, the reduction in planning time for, for teachers. Because we, we did see that there is a strong correlation to planning, you know, fully funded planning time and coaching time. So, all right, thanks."},{"start":6689155,"end":6823534,"speaker":"A","text":"Awesome. So some things I heard, I just really want to call it out for the community, was that, uh, we are not in this proposal cutting anything from music, art, PE, mental health, or MTSS supports. All right, so just, yeah, you've advocated for it, please don't cut it, and we're not cutting it, right? So just, I think that's the really clear message for the community, uh, on, on Those things. I think just again emphasizing something you already said, but just making sure that people understand that we cannot sell land parcels to go and put money in the general fund to pay teachers. Just legally it doesn't work. Be cool if it did. That'd be a neat option to explore, but, but we can't. In terms of impact to the classroom, like there are guest teachers and trimming that is going to impact the classrooms. That's probably the closest thing to the classroom that's in this set of cuts. And we heard that. And we've heard from many commenters here that guest teachers are a powerful tool for helping to invest in our teachers. So like this one is— I mean, they're all painfully cut, but this one feels like pretty especially painfully cut. And it's, it's an example of the sort of thing that were we to raise a parcel tax, that's the sort of thing that we could fund with a parcel tax, is funding guest teachers, right? So Be nice if we could figure out a way to make that happen. I do want to take a moment just to thank the incredible community that has come out here in person and online that feels comfortable presenting in their own language. I'm so happy to have everyone here coming and sharing authentically about their own experiences. We are so glad you're here. We're so glad you're sharing, and I hope that this typifies So, so thank you so much for that. Um, we heard, um, a couple folks from Orion, and I also had a number of people write in, uh, about concerns in terms of funding the MI curriculum there. And I, I didn't get into the weeds enough on the spreadsheet to map that out. I don't know if you could take a moment to—"},{"start":6823534,"end":6850968,"speaker":"C","text":"Right, it's not on the spreadsheet. But I've been working with a funder that I think I can get the funding for one more year. So for that, for that, but then we need to, we need to think of how are we going to keep that going, right? Because now this is to be the last year, and I think the funder is going to come through for one more year. But then she goes, I have to stop."},{"start":6853813,"end":6903194,"speaker":"A","text":"Well, it's helpful for a year. But yeah, I think that the hard part is that, like, if we have a program, you know, like our Spanish immersion program, like our Mandarin immersion program, that needs certain supports to exist, having those supports is not an optional add-on, right? It's core to what the program is. If you have an MI program, you need to have Mandarin curriculum. And so just, I want to make sure that if we are deciding like, hey, we really do want to have something like an MI program ongoing, that we have some reliable mechanism of funding for it. Um, and I'm not at the point where I feel like I'm, I'm hearing that. I'm hearing like we've maybe cross our fingers, we'll get one more year of funding for that, but like that we don't necessarily have structural supports that will invest in that program."},{"start":6903194,"end":6934766,"speaker":"C","text":"And we hope that the The Mandarin program, as it's been— when I put this in place and did the research for it, I knew at that time there was going to be costs to start it up, just like when we did with the Spanish immersion. And we were able to move forward with the different types of costs that at that time Catherine was the admin And at the site to get the training and so forth. And we didn't have the person that we have now."},{"start":6934958,"end":6935247,"speaker":"N","text":"We had—"},{"start":6935247,"end":6936933,"speaker":"C","text":"Name was Danny."},{"start":6937125,"end":6937687,"speaker":"F","text":"Danny, right?"},{"start":6937687,"end":7004438,"speaker":"C","text":"Yeah, that started out with us because we needed quite a bit of help. And this is the person that started the Mandarin immersion program in Cupertino. And we had her for a couple of years, and then we found someone else. But it's like the Spanish immersion program. It's now, you know, been in been in play for many, many years. Yeah, it's to get it— to get the Mandarin immersion program there also so that you don't need that anymore. It's all developed. You've got the curriculum that you're going to be utilizing. You're just going to need, um, whether it be a coach that is a district-wide coach similar for what we have at— for our— for other programs at our school sites, or someone that's a consultant that comes now and then, but is not here on a yearly basis with a contract. And if that person is working with us in developing materials, that we as the Redwood City School District have access to those materials without having to be charged in the future."},{"start":7004438,"end":7007097,"speaker":"A","text":"Did we have a pathway to that?"},{"start":7007097,"end":7046501,"speaker":"C","text":"We are looking at a pathway because the, the contracts we have We sent back to our attorney, and it's kind of wishy-washy. So we're trying to work that out at this point in time, at least again for if we're going in this direction with, with the same person for next year, that that contract is very specific for curriculum that's being created, for curriculum that's being taught in the classroom. That is curriculum that is for Redwood City School District. And if you're going to go out and start selling it to other Then why is Redwood City not getting something back for it?"},{"start":7046501,"end":7047701,"speaker":"K","text":"Yeah."},{"start":7047701,"end":7050677,"speaker":"C","text":"So we're working on that with our attorney. There's been a little blip."},{"start":7050677,"end":7114795,"speaker":"A","text":"Okay, thank you for the update. I appreciate that. And then just kind of finally, I want to acknowledge Tina. Thank you so much for speaking out regularly about the need for extra help on the IEP front. I think it's really powerful when principals can get time in the classroom classroom to do observation, to give teachers feedback. We know, like all people, we, we get better when we get observation and feedback. And so I, I think that there's not a point at which that stops, where you've achieved perfection and no longer can further improve. And so I think being able to find a way to get our principals in the classroom as regularly as possible observing and giving feedback will help to invest in our teachers and make sure that the quality of the curriculum that the students is receiving is, is going to be as high as possible. So I'm keen to figure out if we can do something on the IEP front as well. And Tina, thank you for your comments. Cool. I think that's it for me. So I don't know if you have any comments."},{"start":7114795,"end":7165815,"speaker":"C","text":"I just want to definitely thank the committee. And again, there's a meeting a week from tonight, so I have to have this all organized By a week and a week, and as with the two board members, you will have it. But I'll send it to the others also. I don't know if I will have the spelled out as much as you want, but I will definitely work on this worksheet and work with the team to see what we can come up with, especially in the realm of the guest teachers, the IEPs, and then the other piece. Definitely, I will have for prior to that February meetings, not only in our individual meetings but ahead of time, what it looks like. And when you see the reduction and what that means, and what extra work do people need to have to do, so forth."},{"start":7165815,"end":7176770,"speaker":"I","text":"On that spreadsheet, Dr. B, that you showed with the— or Rick, you were showing with the column— the committee is voting and then checking the box, or Right."},{"start":7176818,"end":7194705,"speaker":"C","text":"So what we, what we just, what we determined at the meeting was that here were the items, and then there is a, there is a column for Strategic Resource Alignment Committee recommendations, and those are the ones they check off on. And then there is the superintendent's recommendations."},{"start":7194705,"end":7197708,"speaker":"I","text":"It's just a yes/no."},{"start":7197788,"end":7198093,"speaker":"F","text":"There's no—"},{"start":7198109,"end":7200839,"speaker":"C","text":"I'm sure there'll be some discussion too."},{"start":7205886,"end":7228349,"speaker":"A","text":"And just as we see these artifacts, and I know there's so much hashing out that goes behind them, the more that we can see some of the deltas of this is what's different since last we looked at this, to draw people's attention towards this and the outcomes of that means that this is not affected, that would be really helpful for helping people understand. Thank you."},{"start":7233058,"end":7353925,"speaker":"C","text":"I want to thank just not only the board, of course, but also this committee and the parents that, um, come to the meetings. I mean, the meetings that we have at Taft, Garfield, and Hoover— those meetings exist right after this large committee meeting, and the parents are there to give their input, to ask questions. Thank them. Thank the team That has worked very diligently with myself. That is Rick and Jorge, and then I have Michelle Ramon and Jorge that are also working behind the scenes with parents and the large group in itself that comes to the meetings on Tuesday evenings and has some good— we've had some really great dialogue for the future of what they're thinking of. Which I will put in notation to you, or we can talk about it at one-on-one meetings. But it is something that you know is in the back of their minds also. But it's been I believe we've been transparent. I really do. The principals were when they got this spreadsheet were very happy to see the spreadsheet and what what was on it because they were thinking they were going back to. Their staffs and saying, okay, we got to cut this, we have to cut this, and how are we going to do it? And that did not take place. So as you alluded to earlier, that was what took place last year. So, um, I'm, I'm going to go back and work with my colleagues and look at the items that you have recommended that we've heard about tonight and then bring I'm gonna bring this forth next week, and when I bring it forth to the committee, you'll also get copies of it, and the community gets copies because what Jorge does after the meeting, he gets notes together about what took place at the meeting, and everything is online within about 48 hours to the community."},{"start":7353925,"end":7359075,"speaker":"H","text":"Okay, great."},{"start":7359210,"end":7359551,"speaker":"C","text":"Thank you."},{"start":7359551,"end":7365465,"speaker":"A","text":"Any further comments or discussion? Would someone like to move to adjourn?"}]}